Periphery!

I played a few games of kill teams and even 40k and noticed the St vs T chart had gone and was replaced by a simple, easy to remember chart. I decided to incorporate a version of this into the combat and after a just a few turns I was able to remember it.

The combat is quite dynamic and also deadly, with any unit having a chance to do damage. Units get pinned which prevents them from moving unless they spend an action to shake it off. Stuns are more serious and need a test to remove. Stamina are basically hit points and having less stamina affects performance.

A unit that gets charged and hasn’t yet activated can run, hit the deck or shoot. Having this system really makes me think about whether or not to charge and also whether or not to activate a vulnerable unit.

I’ve always loved the Bolt Action style ‘pull a token from the bag’ activation system, and incorporate it into every ruleset I play – much to powergamers’ disgust!

The only activation system that tops it is the Strontium Dog one. It’s basically the same but with special characters (the main ones from the comic) generating ‘star activation tokens’ which have a chance of being put back in to the bag and re-used in the same turn. Powerful and simple stuff that has lead to cinematic moments and strategic plays.

I decided to use the Strontium Dog activation system and tokens in Periphery. I also decided to use the other dice and tokens from the game too as they were gathering dust and they’re really very nice. They also pretty much matched the statuses and situations existing in previous versions of Periphery.

The custom dice are simple, after having tried the Imperial Assault dice and frying my brain, and are D6s with three symbols – HITS x 3, DEFENDS x 2, and CRITICAL x 1.

As I’m not re-inventing the Stront game, but incorporating the dice and tokens, I have renamed some things which seem more intuitive to me.

Having tinkered around with several versions of Periphery – so named because it’s sooo on the edge of the fringe of a niche hobby – I decided I wanted a game that could do these things.

1. Skirmish AND solo, coop rules that don’t change the game
2. Point buy stats to suit any model and weapon
3. Simple combat that doesn’t involve arithmetic or several rolls
4. Dungeon crawl capability with fog of war
5. Rules for the all the sci-fi dungeon furniture that I have amassed
6. Stupidly simple AI for hostiles
7. Campaign and character development